EMMANUEL UNITED CHURCH
AT RIDEAU PARK
SCRIPTURE READINGS
October 31, 2010
GOD’S WORD FOR US
The First Lesson is 2 Thessalonians 1:1-4, 11-12
|
Introduction: The Epistle reading from the second letter to the church at Thessalonia begins with an affirmation of thanksgiving for the congregation's life and witness. Even in difficult times the community of faith endures in its deepening of faith and love for each other. The promise is that the community is upheld in prayer by others who trust that God can and will work through them. |
1Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy,
To the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:
2Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Thanksgiving
3We must always give thanks to God for you, brothers and sisters, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of everyone of you for one another is increasing. 4Therefore we ourselves boast of you among the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith during all your persecutions and the afflictions that you are enduring.
The New Testament Lesson is John 15:16-17
|
Introduction: The short reading from the 15th chapter of John, is part of the farewell discourse by Jesus to his disciples. The opening verses of this 15th chapter are the familiar image of Jesus as the true vine and believers as the branches. These two verse are a reprise of the theme, we as disciples have been called to bear fruit, fruit that will endure. |
16You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. 17I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.
What Endures
If I were given the task of writing to the churches of our day, where would I begin. Like Paul, I think I would begin with words of thanksgiving and encouragement. When Paul writes the second letter to the church at Thessalonica he begins - with thanksgiving for the journey of the community. Hear then these words of affirmation - we thank God for you, for the ways in which you faith is growing and the ways in which you show Christian love for one another. We even boast of your life together and the ways in which you endure.
And indeed there is much that one might boast about in the lives of the two congregations with whom I share worship this morning. Both Emmanuel and Rideau Park have ministries marked by vitality. Earlier this morning I talked about the strength of the Rideau Park congregation, so let me focus for a moment on the things about which I might boast if I were writing to Emmanuel. If you agree I invite you respond with “Amen”.
I would tell the story of the union with Eastbrook and the openness and caring that marked that journey of bringing two congregations together;
I would speak of the partnership with your sister congregation in El Salvador;
and of the mission trips and global connections that are nurtured;
and I would name the latest venture of having the courage (some might say foolishness) to embark on a major retrofit of your building.
I would also name the ability to raise up strong lay leaders and to nurture caring community.
As wonderful as the story of this congregation may be, it is not just your story. It is a story shaped by God’s having chosen and called you to be a community of faith. Your history, your memories, your legacy is most profoundly the story of God’s grace at work in our world. It is the story of the power the gospel to bring people together in community that is rooted in faith and love; and to experience the power to persevere and endure in faithfulness.
The Church of Christ needs signs of encouragement, signs of communities who live a commitment to the future, who continue to grow in their faith and service. It is easy in times of uncertainty to become insular, to think that we are living in isolation from others; to focus on our own challenges and struggles. But the opposite in true, in times of uncertainty we need broader circles of connection so we can encourage one another. We need to share our stories of hope so that we can embrace the future. We need to notice the places that are bearing enduring fruit.
The Thessalonians were living in a time of persecution and trial, it might be an understatement to say that things were not easy. And while we would not use the description of persecution to describe the time in which we, as the church, are living, certainly the church lives in a time of what it is facing trials. These are uncertain times for the church, particularly the mainline church in North America. There are many things that challenge our future and require of us to intentional discernment about the very nature of how we are called to be God’s people. These times require of all of us perseverance and faith.
The context in which we are called to be the Church is different from the context of over 50 years ago when this congregation was first planted. We live in a time when there is exponential change, with the speed and nature of change ever growing. It is projected that what the youngest generation among us learns in elementary school today will be outdated information by the time they reach university.
The church is not unaffected by the context of change in which we live. The typical Christian is no longer a white person of European descent living in the northern hemispher but a rather a woman of colour living in the southern hemisphere, Africa and South America. The Church is no longer one of the cultural shaping institutions of western culture. Declining church attendance, shrinking resources, an aging demographic of those who claim membership all point to a time of stress and uncertainty and transformation. Some would suggest not unlike the reformation of 500 years ago which by the way is also a celebration on the church calendar for today.
Phylis Tickle an American theologian writes in her book, The Great Emergence, that the change we are experiencing is not entirely new in the history of the church. She suggests that once about every 500 years, the church finds itself in a position where it needs to decide how it will declutter the attack. She uses the image of having a rummage sale and the task of trying to decide what items to clear out because they no longer serve a purpose. It is a time for considering what is the enduring nature of the church - what about what we embody as the body of Christ is meant to endure and what can and should we leave behind as we if we allow God to prune us so we might bear the fruit of the gospel for a new generation?
It is a time for considering what is the enduring nature of the church - what about what we embody as the body of Christ is meant to endure and what can and should we leave behind as we if we allow God to prune us so we might bear the fruit of the gospel for a new generation?
The echo from the scripture readings this morning is that the enduring nature of the church is to be those who love one another. What endures is the faith that builds our relationship with God and love which builds our relationships with one another and the world. Beyond all else - this is what endures. Words we find echoed in Pauls’s first letter to the church at Corinth, the thirteenth chapter - “and these three endure faith, hope and love and greatest of these is love.”
But knowing what endures is not the same as living the power of what endures. What caused Paul to boast about the young Thessalonian church was not that we knew about faith and love but rather that they were living their reality with perseverance in a way that bore the fruit of a compelling witness to the power of the gospel and to God’s purpose and calling for the future.
I was stopped dead in my tracks by one image that I came across in my preparation for today. I was the image of the fruit the church is called to bear is the fruit of change. The fruit the church is called to bear is the fruit of change. I had never before considered that the fruit that the church is bear is the fruit of change. I had thought of the fruit as compassion, justice, faithful witness, enduring hope, but change? The image has pushed me to think about the relationship between the church and change in a whole new way. The tree, the church is rooted and fed by the vine of Christ’s love and gospel but the fruit of that gospel is change and transformation. The fruit of the gospel is change and transformed lives. People made new by the love of God. The fruit of the gospel is a changed and transformed world, that is the vision of a world made new shaped into the dream of God, the Kingdom of God. And could it be that the fruit of the gospel is a changing and transforming church? Like the tree of life in the book of Revelation that bears a new fruit in each month of the year, what fruit of new possibilities can we bears?
So with the understanding that I am always conscious that whatever the fruit of change, it must be nurtured and connected to the enduring faith and love of the gospel of Christ, let me offer some suggestions about the nature of the fruit that is maturing on our branches, and which seems at time to take so much energy from us to grow and bring to harvest.
The maturing fruit of change is about a deeper understanding of who we are and to what we are called. The fruit of change is about an emerging sense and clarity of of purpose; in church language of what we call mission. Congregations need to know why they exist and what they are called to do. It is not enough to think that the mission of the church is to sustain the church, the church building, the care of those who gather. The Church needs those who will bear the fruit of rediscovering how we are to serve the world.
The fruit of change growing in us, is not about us as church at all, it is about how we offer a hope and service to our communities. What words of hope can are we called to speak to this community of Ottawa which a few weeks ago the news told us is more depressed than most? What word of hope to our global community where we daily hear of the struggles of survival and the presence of violence. What word of hope that will change the understanding of our relationship with creation and bring a new commitment to tending the garden of the planet in which God has placed us. We need communities who empower their people to live lives of justice and hope in the world, moving their people to engage the powers and principalities that rob others of life.
The fruit of change growing on the branch of the church is the fruit of radical hospitality. For generations, we have practiced if not believed, if you build it they will come. The reality is that engaging a new generation in living the faith will ask much more of us than providing a place to gather. The fruit of hospitality will build communities where diversity is welcomed as a gift and not simply managed as a challenge. In a time when the experience and expectations of living generations is diverse, the fruit of change will also invite us to new ways of not only tolerating each other but celebrating new other - whatever our age, our race, our ethnicity, our economic or social experience. It may be that God is at work pruning away many of old assumptions in order to build and celebrate the diversity that is a growing part of our communities and community.
We need to be intentional about how we invite people into an experience of faith that makes a difference in their lives. The experience of faith is not limited to Sunday morning worship, it is about helping people make a connection between their everyday life and the presence of God.
And finally, the fruit of change is about nurturing communities to bear the fruit of risk taking - but if we know our Biblical story, we know that has always be a characteristic of the people of God. We need to be willing to fail and to learn from our failures. The comfortable patterns of how we are institutionally church may be the dead wood that God is trimming away in this time. The branches may have served us well in the past but they are no longer producing, they no longer carry the sap that energizes or caused new buds to sprout. A new generation may require new patterns of being. Can we risk empowering people to do what they feel God is calling them to do? Can we risk someone trying something new that we think is doomed to failure? Can we risk investing in the future rather than maintaining the past?
The notion that the very fruit that Christ asks the church to bear is change asks of me a great deal of trust. I suspect it may ask the same of you. But when I think of the past we celebrate - the commitment and faith and love of those who have walked before - I see a great cloud of witness to the power of trust. And so my friends, we in the whole church pray for you, as we pray for each community of God’s faithful that together we may be worthy of the calling that is our and bear with new purpose, grace and trust the fruit of gospel in our time.
Amen